MSX (computer standard): Difference between revisions

[[Filefile:MSXYAMAYAMA.jpgJPG|frame|Yamaha MSX machine used in Soviet schools]]

Based partially on the [[ColecovisionColecoVision]]/Adam home computer and [[Sega]] SG-1000 console, it offered a powerful (for the time) 8-bit system using the Z80 [[CPU]] and Texas Instruments' TMS9918 [[GPU]]. Most MSX systems offered 64K of the main memory from the outset, at a time when the first series of the [[ZX Spectrum]] had only 16K, and it could provide arcade-quality graphics at the fraction of the cost. In fact, it was often called ''the'' best Z80-based system of all time. Also, as it was based on the console that later evolved into the groundbreaking [[Sega Master System]], it made porting easier. It also had not one, but ''two'' cartridge slots connecting to the system bus, allowing for system expandability and avoiding the cheap but cumbersome and unreliable cassette tape distribution system.

In Japan, the MSX was ''the'' home computer of the '80s (the [[PC -88]] and later on the [[PC 98]] and [[Sharp X 68000X68000]] being the only true competition it had). Top-flight software houses like [[Konami]] (if there was no Konami for the MSX, [[What Could Have Been|we might not be discussing the MSX]]), [[Hudson Soft]], [[Compile]], [[Square Enix]], and [[Kirby|HAL]] [[Super Smash Bros.|Laboratory]] contributed hugely to its success. In fact, Konami started its business developing solely for the MSX. [[Nintendo]] similarly opened up HAL expressly for Satoru Iwata (now the President of Nintendo) and his friends to compete in the PC market under another name, in case it flopped; It didn't -- HAL Labs also ended up doing plenty of NES games as well.

As the 80s wore on, however, updates became somewhat sluggish, the standard started to fall behind the times. Microsoft, now getting most of its revenue from the PC market, lost interest in the project, and, with ASCII concentrating on its core publishing business, it gradually became abandoned. Unfortunately, unlike the PC, with which it shared many ideas and architectural similarities, the MSX was never marketed like a business machine—a significant oversight, as Brazil's case showed, that eventually doomed the very promising system. (The [[PC 98]] line, meanwhile, ''was'', and it really began to tell in sales around 1987-88 or so.) With its prime movers losing interest, the software manufacturers threw their complete support behind either Nintendo's [[Famicom]], [[Super Famicom]] and [[Game Boy]], Sharp's [[Sharp X 68000X68000|X68000]], Sega's [[Sega Genesis|Mega Drive]] and [[Game Gear]] as it was to late for the [[Sega Master System|Mark III in Japan]] or NEC's [[PC 98]] and [[TurboGrafx-16|PC Engine]] offerings, and both [[PlayStation|Sony]] and [[Xbox|Microsoft]] would later go on to make other video game systems. A few of the games for it can be found on Nintendo's [[Virtual Console]] in Japan, and as [[Embedded Precursor|part of]] ''[[Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater]]: [[Updated Rerelease|Subsistence]]''.

* Even its first version, Texas Instruments' TMS9918, used also in the [[ColecovisionColecoVision]], [[Other Sega Systems|Sega SG-1000]] and [[TI-99]], had such capabilities:

** ''[[Metal Gear 1987(video game)|Metal Gear]]'' (before it was ported to the NES)

** ''[[Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake]]'' (Technically the third game, but ''[[Snake's Revenge]]'' for the NES was not a Kojima game and thus not part of the main continuity)

* ''Seiken Acho'' (renamed port of IREM's ''[[Kung -Fu Master]]'')